


Taku's Interview

by AFalsePrayer



Category: Chaos;Child, Chaos;Head
Genre: Conversations, Gen, Interviews, Post-Canon, SciADV, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-25 00:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21347065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AFalsePrayer/pseuds/AFalsePrayer
Summary: This story takes place after the ending of Chaos;Child. Reader discretion is advised for spoilers regarding Chaos;Child and Chaos;Head.
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

October 2017, 1.0485962%

Takuru closed his eyes and thought to himself peacefully. It had been a few months after he had been sent here. Getting adjusted to the treatment of being a mass murderer, the order here was remarkable. It was just peace and quiet.

Well, peace was not quite it. The quietness was in fact, driving him to a lack of mental sanction.

The detention centre was extremely strict, but they had forced Takuru into a unique position. He was in a solo prison cell, and nearly nothing was allowed for him to do. Most prisoners did some kind of work, but there were probably arrangements made that didn't allow that. Whether it was for worry of the potential interactions between him and the criminals or wanting to keep Takuru alive for the sake of Wakui’s agreement, Takuru was imprisoned to his own cell. He never saw any faces and was allowed few keepsakes. He was not allowed to leave the room ever, and meals were delivered to him in a slot, giving him rations to last.

It was almost impossible to believe that his mental health had lasted all this time, but maybe that was another factor to the challenge. That was another way for Wakui to get Takuru to break.

And truthfully, it was working. Takuru’s sanity was tanking.

He and Kunosato had discussed the fact that yes, Takuru would be restricted from the flow of information reaching him, but to think that it had been taken to this sort of degree was simply insane.

All Takuru could do in the room was wait and sit around. He had nothing to do in prison, aside from the daily physical exercise they forced him to do. All they ever gave him was a journal and a pencil. As for what reason, Takuru wasn't quite sure. Maybe Wakui still wanted an answer to his question. Maybe Wakui was waiting for the day that Takuru reached his conclusion regarding the world and its benevolence. What, was he supposed to make like all the other great philosophers who had been imprisoned before him? Was he to pour out all his philosophy into a single book, hoping that it would get out into the world?

It was crazy. It didn’t feel like real life. And Takuru's sanity was falling apart.

Mio Kunosato had pulled strings for this situation. Due to being the leading expert on Chaos Child Syndrome, Kunosato had visitation rights and visited every two months (or whenever she felt like visiting, truthfully as it were—nobody else knew the true circumstances of CCS, and they didn’t want the murderer to gain his powers again), going into his cell and running tests on him to check his health. Takuru was never warned ahead of time, but he always welcomed the company of the one he looked up to back in his student days.

As it were, Kunosato was also wary of whether Wakui would get impatient and act on impulse, breaking the agreement he and Takuru had made. According to her, she had yet to find movement on the side of the Committee. It infuriated Takuru to know that there were no developments, but at the very least, she had preserved his sanity in this confined space.

And for whatever reason, he’d been asked to hook up his brain to a certain apparatus that Kunosato would always bring in. She claimed that it was trivial, but he knew for a fact that he had never been asked to do so when he was still in the AH Tokyo Hospital.

For that shimmer of hope to see his family and be proven innocent one day, Takuru waited. He waited and waited. Letting his patience run long and hard, at the expense of his mental health. Maybe this was all a setup, to drive him crazy with boredom, and the only way that he'd be able to free himself from that boredom was to do something interesting. Something that would involve going back and awakening as a Gigalomaniac.

Wakui had thirst. But it was exactly that impatience of boredom that had caused all of Takuru’s world to crumble before him. That crave for something to pursue, that was the root cause of why he ended up here.

If Takuru gave up, he would have learned nothing. And there was one thing that Takuru was for sure—stubborn.

Perhaps he’d perish from the history books in ignominy. The days were slowly becoming drearier and drearier, and it was getting increasingly tiring. He wanted to find his peace, and have the world operate by itself without him. Was it better to die in peace at this point, or was it better to struggle and stay alive to hope that he could be free from the bounds of a cruel society?

Would he be able to meet his family again, and would he be able to cry in his sister Senri’s arms in their own home?

\---

"Taku! Rise and shine, okkei! Bokenasu!"

Takuru opened one eye, tired and confused. Where was that voice? Why did it sound so familiar?

Takuru had just spent the last five hours sitting in his prison cell, left with nothing to do other than to force himself into a delusion. That's what he did when he wasn't writing since it was quite easy for him to get bored with writing. It was hard to keep his sanity up in that space for weeks on end without any visitation, but he tried his best. All Takuru was ever given was the date, but not the time. His only concept of time was watching the clock change days, and only then would he know that midnight had passed. His only way of accurately knowing was for Kunosato to tell him the time during her visits.

His biorhythms were certainly going haywire, and he knew that Kunosato was overdue for a visit. It had been too many months. What was up?

Usually when he even got sick of delusions, he would try his best to fall asleep, keeping his mind as clean as possible from other thoughts, and he would then wake up to the guard telling him that it was time for dinner. So why did he hear something that seemed so familiar, like it was from outside the bars of his prison cell?

It shouldn’t have been possible to exist in real life.

"...Who's there?"

Takuru rubbed his eyes and looked around the room, slowly coming to his senses. Something was different.

Whatever had happened to his prison cell had completely vanished. Instead, he was lying on the sofa in someone's house. In his cell, he originally had a singular ceiling lamp, which he could turn on and off by asking the guard outside; this place was lit warmly all across, with lamps and ceiling lights, all different varying shades of yellow and white. As he checked the windows, slowly sitting up, it seemed to be night-time. He wasn't sure. It had been so long since he'd ever seen a window at all, never mind the light of day or night. When Kunosato visited, she was the one who entered the cell, and he never ever left the space.

"Hello?"

Hearing his voice like this was weird. It didn’t echo. Instead, it just simply resonated warmly in the room, absorbed by the walls.

He looked to the front of him. A television stood on a coffee table and laid across the coffee table seemed to be a figurine from that Blood Tune anime. Yes, it was Seira Orgel, if Takuru's memory served correctly. The anime that he had long criticised constantly. And she was lying down on an alarm clock. It seemed to be flashing 7:00 repeatedly.

A clock. Time. Something he had not seen in months.

Behind him, there was a dinner table, with chairs haphazardly pushed in. Beyond that was a kitchen island, with a full stove and everything.

Takuru didn't understand, and yet there was a wistful feeling inside of him, slowly revealing itself. This was the home he missed for so long. The home he wanted all this time. The home where he could live along with all of his family members. Yui, Yuto, Uki, and Senri. All of the people he wanted to spend his time at home with.

And in the midst of it all, he'd lost his family instead.

Takuru looked down at himself and blinked. He was no longer in his prisoner uniform, instead dressed in his old outfit, a waistcoat across a white button up shirt. It was jarring to see himself like this, it almost felt childish. He raised his hand to adjust his glasses.

He missed. He tried to grab his glasses again, and Takuru winced when his fingers poked at his own eyes. He blinked. He blinked again, looking around to see whether or not he could see.

His glasses were off, and yet he could see perfectly fine. For the first time, he could see properly without glasses.

What the hell was going on?

"Taku! What are we making for dinner?"

Takuru froze. Who was calling him? No, none of this made sense at all. Why was he in someone's house? This was clearly not his living space, and he should be in his prison space. Had someone kidnapped him and dragged him here? How--

"Come downstairs, silly!" The light from the stairwell lit up, and Takuru saw the glimpse of pink hair peek from around the corner.

_Serika?!_

No, it wasn't Serika. Takuru had just jumped to the first thing that came to his mind out of instinct. _Do I miss her that much so?_ The girl coming down was somebody else entirely. She was taller compared to the schoolgirls that Takuru knew, and she had a different bounce to her. It felt like she wasn't quite from the same time and era of Takuru.

"Taku!" The girl turned back around to shout to the upstairs. "Are you coming or not?" A voice that Takuru couldn't quite make out from the top had said something. and the girl huffed. "If you say so! Just hurry up!"

The girl skipped her way downstairs. Takuru felt bittersweet once more, nostalgic of the old days where he'd call out to Yui like this, or when Yuto would be late for school, and Takuru would be the one to wake him up. Everything was so reminiscent of his old life here, and he didn't know whether he wanted to continue to remember, or if he wanted to just go back to forgetting his old life.

Takuru then looked up, and he realised that the girl had her eyes locked directly on him, smiling unnervingly.

"U-Uh..."

"Bishi!” The girl posed, raising her hand to her hand like a salute and putting her other arm on her waist. “What would you like, Takuru?"

"H-h-huh?! You know my name?"

"I'm Rimi Sakihata! Nice to meet you!" Ignoring his question, the girl named Rimi approached him and shook hands. Takuru didn't know how to react, so he laid there frozen. "Takuru Miyashiro, right?"

"W-why do you know me!?" Takuru realised the danger of the situation, and he started to back away, only for the girl to grab his wrist firmly and look at him with that same unnerving smile. “Eek!”

"Well, we were expecting you!"

What did any of this mean? Takuru was so lost. "W-Why am I here, Miss Sakihata?" She wouldn’t let go of his wrist no matter what. And that damned smile.

"Because Taku and I thought it would be good to have a chat with you!"

Takuru's mind was not doing well with handling this new information. Who was she referring to? Was he Taku? Was there another Taku? Why did she know him? How did he get out of his cell, and why is he in this space now?

"Takuru? It’s alright if I call you that, right?"

"Y-yes!?" Takuru's voice cracked as he spoke, and internally he was dying inside at that. His voice shouldn't have cracked. That's not how he would conduct himself with strangers. Well, given the dire situation, it would probably more of the right-sider’s decision to—

"What do you want for dinner?"

"I'll..." Takuru didn't know how to answer. He felt like he was in a foreign country, and he was being interrogated. Nothing made sense, and he didn't know how to react. His mouth hung open as he tried to search for a socially acceptable answer.

Her eyes warmed, and that smile faded. "I'm sorry. This is all so new to you, isn't it?" She walked up to him, and she gave him a hug, patting his head. "It's okay. Everything is going to turn out okay. Don't worry about anything else for these few hours. Just enjoy your time here with us."

And that was enough reason for Takuru to accept.

Takuru didn’t even realise his shoulders had been shaking until he felt Rimi holding them. He tried his best to stop it, and he took a deep breath, exhaling heavily. "I'll...I'll have a bowl of udon, if that's fine."

"Bishi!" Rimi saluted, backing away from him. She smiled, and this time Takuru could see the warmth behind it. "It's okay! Don't worry about anything else, you’re safe here! No one knows about this place after all, so just relax!"

\---

Takuru sat on the sofa, scrolling through the television channels. The smells of vegetables and meats from behind him, the scents filling the room with pleasure. It smelled remarkable, and it only continued to remind Takuru of the nostalgia for his home. The sounds of water boiling, cutting vegetables, pouring ingredients in—he could believe it to be Senri if he tried hard enough. Just her dressed in her little apron, cooking something for the rest of the family.

_Yeah. That sounds nice._

"Hey Taku! You really like news channels, huh?"

Takuru didn't respond. He was focused on the titbits of information being put out. Due to him being secluded for so long, Takuru was well aware that there were things going on without his knowledge. What would become of the Return of New Generation Madness cases? What were his friends and family doing now? Were there any developments on the case, being reopened? What was popular opinion?

These were all things that he craved to know, despite having previously made the conscious choice to cut himself off from all of that when he entered prison. He didn’t want to be at a disadvantage, nor did he want to be wilfully ignorant.

Takuru heard the sound of pouring, and the stove fans being turned off. "Alright! That's done!" He turned around, and he felt his stomach rumble at the sight of the delicious food that had been cooked up by Sakihata--no, Rimi. That was what she wanted him to call him as. He already had enough of attempting to push others away by calling them only by their family names, even when he just wanted their company so much.

He wouldn't make the same mistake he did with Senri and lose someone again like he nearly lost her.

"Come on, Taku! You can sit here and enjoy your food!" Rimi gestured to a seat, and Takuru accepted her offer graciously, getting up and walking over to position himself there. "Hmm, I'll get Taku—uh, him upstairs!—in the meanwhile. He usually has his headphones on, hmph. You can get started without us though, bishi!"

Takuru still had no idea of who this Taku was, but he didn't want to ask too many questions. He didn't want to appear nosy or rude. As Rimi ran up the stairs, shouting for Taku to come downstairs, Takuru waited there, instinctively reaching for his phone, before remembering that he had no phone. One of the things he was so used to, and one of the things robbed from him when he entered prison.

So instead, he took one of the Gero Froggies from the table and inspected it thoroughly. Gero Froggies. The one thing that had given away the true culprit of the Return of the New Generation Madness cases. The connection to his life long rival, lover, and doppelganger. The reflection of who he was.

Or rather, a reflection of who he used to be.

All of this thinking was definitely not a good effect on his health. Maybe he should just—

"Damn you, Rimi! You're so pushy! I said five more minutes! Kazuki said she needed me for this fight!"

"Taku, your game can wait! You can't starve to death!"

"Shut up woman, my thirst for destroying normie DQN mobile gamers persists, fuhihi!"

"Taku! Not even a word of thanks, heeeh?"

Takuru stood up, not sure what was happening. Why was that voice so familiar? Where did he remember it from, if anywhere? It seemed like something of a fateful night, from a life that had preceded him.

After a slight pause, there was a quiet mutter. "Thanks for the food, Rimi," Takuru heard.

Rimi and her companion appeared at the bottom of the stairwell. Whoever this Taku was, it was giving Takuru a sense of déjà vu. A young man, blue dishevelled hair, dressed in a Blood Tune shirt, and pyjama pants. It was clear that this man didn't give a care about fashion or tidiness.

And now this man was staring at Takuru, surprise visible on his face. "Oh. He's awake! I didn't think he'd awake so soon."

"He's got a strong affinity," Rimi nodded. _What was that to mean? _"He was awake when I came downstairs."

The man chuckled nervously. "Well, that's good to hear, of course, why wouldn't it be, right. Even if we expected him in the morning, haha, it’s alright! I’m not underprepared!" He talked very quickly for who he was, and seemed to rush over his words. He walked up to Takuru and nodded. "Hi!"

"H-hi." Takuru nodded back. It felt like the anxiety in the room had somehow doubled. Not only was Takuru anxious, but now this man had appeared as well, and the hyper energy seemed to be radiating off of him.

Wrong-siders would probably regard it as gamer anxiety, but Takuru could tell it was something slightly different.

Rimi spoke up. "Takuru, this is Takumi, my boyfriend!"

The boy named Takumi grinned with a hint of contempt. "Nice to meet you, Miyashiro. She’s my girlfriend."

"Takumi..." Takuru repeated the name to himself. A dull part of his memory was beginning to remember. "Wait, the Lightning Fast Neidhardt? The same person?!”

As Takuru said it, it sounded so wrong in his mouth. The New Generation Madness cases. The cases that he had been following so fervently when he was a child, with his imaginary friend Serika, all culminating in the 2009 earthquake of Shibuya. It was terrible, and it was amazing. It was terrible, causing misery to hundreds of Japanese citizens and propelling the start of the Chaos Child Syndrome, but it had also brought Serika alive into the real world.

And yet it was that very series of events that had inspired Serika to recreate that sense of thrill, just when Takuru wanted to settle down and find something he was finally enthusiastic about. The feeling of chasing the cases, only to be chased by the culprit as well. The cat and mouse game, but all for a bit of pleasure, and placing Takuru at the centre of all attention.

It was the childish thing that Takuru had pursued, and in return, it had come to bite Takuru back, only extending the misery that had stemmed from the earthquake of 2009.

And the one person who he had idolised for so long, had been the legendary psychic boy who proved his innocence. Takumi Nishijo.

As Takumi was about to open his mouth and answer, Rimi interrupted. "W-we can brag about that later! I bet the two of you are both hungry, aren't you?"

Takuru's stomach growled again. That was most certainly a yes. He'd just woken up, and he knew that it had been a serious while after he had gotten his rations back in the cell.

Which reminded him, how was he here in the first place?

Takuru thought about this as the three of them sat down at the table, settling into their chairs.

"Thanks for the meal," Rimi and Takumi said in unison. The sudden coordination caused Takuru to jolt in alarm. _No normal couple did that. That was almost like they read each other’s minds!_

Nobody ever said things in unison. He knew the stats, he’d done the research—and for something like that to happen within such small error was spooking him. It was just a coincidence, right?

"Thanks for the meal," Takuru whispered to himself, a bit shaken up.

The three started to dig into their meals. Rimi had served them all udon noodles as Takuru had requested, with a bit of chicken and green. It was mixed together well with various sauces, and in a strange way, it...it felt like home.

Takuru looked at the bowl of udon noodles in front of him, and that guilt inside his heart started calling out to him again. Rimi was a talented cook by all means, but this was too much.

Rimi's cooking reminded him of Senri's cooking back home. It was the exact same flavour, the exact same scent...it was made with love and care for a family.

But that wasn't possible. Rimi wasn't Senri, and they probably didn't know each other. And even then, this wasn’t just Senri's cooking. It was an accented version of the meal, no--it was the memory in Takuru's mind, but only stronger.

Takuru didn't even realise he was crying until Rimi came up to him and dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief. "It reminds you of home. You miss your family, don't you, Takuru?" she softly asked.

Tears. Tears shed for a family that he had abandoned, and a family that had been torn apart, all because of his selfish ideas that had come back to haunt him. It was the manifestation of his childishness that had led to him to cause suffering once more to a revived Shibuya. It was horrible.

And that name Rimi used. Taku.

That was all Serika would ever call him, wasn't it? She was the only one to ever call him by that.

So why did that same nickname hurt so much when someone else used it?

"Ahhh, that's the stuff!" Takumi stretched his arms and yawned. Takuru, teary-eyed, looked up and saw that he had already finished his meal. "I should get back to my room!"

"Taku!" Rimi scolded. "You're being rude to Takuru!"

"So?"

"He's having a challenging time. He's..." Rimi closed her eyes, as if concentrating on something specific, and then they blinked open. "He's lost his touch with the world around him. You know."

Somehow, that was enough to make Takumi's face soften. His previously mischievous eyes now seemed to be laced with empathy.

"The world, huh..." Takumi wasn't as frustrated now. It was as if he understood what Takuru went through, to which Takuru wanted to protest and lash back at. Nobody knew the misery he went through. There was nobody who experienced as much supernatural terror as he did. He was sure of it.

Nobody knew about it more than he did, right? He was the only one with a special experience like that, right?

"Takuru, why don't you come up to our room? We want to ask you a few questions."

Takuru sniffed and took over the tissue that Takumi handed him. "Ok..."

He blew his nose several times and stood up. It occurred to him that he still didn't know why or how he was here, but that wasn't what had overtaken his senses.

He was filled with an eternal sadness, and he wanted to just find someone who could understand what misery he had gone through.

The three walked up the stairwell, one step at a time, and they headed into Takumi's room.


	2. Chapter 2

Given the choice, Takuru had opted to sit on the bed in the room. There were no other chairs, and he didn't want to awkwardly stand. It would make a bad impression, after all, on his first meeting with who he assumed to be his childhood hero. Takumi took his seat in his gaming chair by his computer setup, and Rimi stood beside him, as if like a bodyguard.

It hadn't come to Takuru's attention until now, but the air in the room was a bit different than casual. It was almost an air of suspicion and doubt in the room, not unlike the feeling he got from

Takumi turned off the computer screen, which Rimi seemed taken aback by. It was a very impressive setup by all accounts. Several monitors, surround speakers, a pair of headphones hung around one monitor, and the sound of the whirring fan below the table. It was what one would expect an otaku to have, and the kind of equipment that was only affordable and useful to a professional e-gamer.

"Takumi, are you sure? You usually just play video games while you talk to others like this, right?"

"I'm sure." Takumi's face looked certain, and for the first time ever, Takuru realised that yes, this was authentically Takumi Nishijo. “I don’t want to take liberties with this. There are things I have to know.”

He sat up straighter and started talking. "Let me introduce myself more properly this time. My name is Takumi Nishijo. I was at the epicentre of the original New Generation Madness events of 2009, and I was the acclaimed psychic boy. Lightning Fast Neidhardt, that's what they've called me, that's what they've always called me."

"I-I'm a huge fan," Takuru said, the words slipping out without prior thought.

"Well that's stupid," Takumi immediately retorted, snorting. "Why would you be a fan of a loser like me? Nobody grows up dreaming to become a stay home hikikomori!"

Rimi kept silent. Her face didn't change, and she seemed to be quietly observing everything that Takuru was doing: his actions, his speech, his movements, his patterns.

Honestly, the sight of the two was giving him déjà u. In the place of the two, he could almost see a younger version of them, in high school, wearing the same school uniform that he remembered Takumi had worn on that televised broadcast. In fact, it reminded Takuru of him and Serika. A blue haired boy sitting in his chair in front of a laptop, staring at whatever interesting things he had found while the pink haired girl would look on and be in amazement.

Only this time, Takumi and Rimi seemed to be coming directly for Takuru.

"Besides," Takumi continued, "you wouldn't want to pursue the route I took in 2009. Though, as it seems...you've already taken that route yourself, unfortunately."

It felt like a stab to the heart. Takuru held his retort back, trying not to let his anxiety get the best of him. He didn't want to break down a second time.

Besides, was that statement betrayal if Takumi was right? He certainly wasn’t wrong either.

"We brought you here to ask a few questions if you don't mind," Takumi said, crossing his legs over each other. Takuru nodded. "Why the hell did you do it?"

"I thought my broadcast--"

"No, that was obviously a lie, only a wrong-sider would believe that, you noob." Takumi's response seemed to just come out like a string of words unfiltered, not even bothering to compensate for Takuru. Takuru would have almost asked Takumi to repeat it again, as if he had missed his words.

But maybe it was that brutal sense of honesty that made Takuru realise that yes, this was who he had looked up to all those years.

And maybe he made the right choice to look up to him all those years ago.

"Well? Are you just going to wait until I pretend that I suddenly believe you, and start acting terrified of you? Oh no, the horrible murderer got out of his cage again and now I'm going to die oh god, this is so--"

"It all started with the earthquake," Takuru started. Takumi stopped, and Takuru felt a bit of irritation in his bones. All of that just to taunt him, and get the information out of his mouth?

But that was fine. He had a story to tell.

Takuru took a deep breath and sat up straight. "2009. The earthquake that devastated Shibuya. Without a doubt you remember it, as do I. There was a childhood friend...her name was Serika. She was stuck in my mind, and she was the only source of happiness I had ever found as a child, my parents having neglected me all this time.

"I... I ran across Shibuya, and people were all yelling at me for not helping. I was too concerned with Serika, who I thought was dying, despite the fact that Serika was not even real. People thought I was an idiot.

"Then the white light came. And I just wanted one single thought: I wanted Serika to save me from all of this misery the world had subjected me to. I didn't want to suffer any longer. And then she became real."

"So, you real booted her..." Takumi muttered. Takuru wasn't too surprised by Takumi saying that word, it only made sense.

Mio had talked about there being stronger and naturally born gigalomaniacs, and that these psychic abilities were only explained by delusionary existences. For Takumi to have the psychic powers the press claimed he had, he had to have been someone with those capabilities.

And somewhere in his mind, he felt like it made sense for Takumi to know about using these psychic powers.

Takuru continued. "Serika was a imaginary friend that I made up all those years ago. She was just the younger childhood friend that I wanted to have, and I would play with her all the time. I... she was my partner the whole way through.

"I found the New Generation Madness incidents to be so thrilling. I wanted to be a hero too, and I wanted to be the one who would be accepted by everyone despite all that society threw at me. I wanted to be a right-sider. I wanted to be a normie.

"When I lost my parents and started living at the Aoba Dorm, my new home, I met my new siblings. I met Senri, I met Yui, I met Yuto. They were my family, and I eventually opened up because I felt that for once, it was a place without lies. People could accept me for who I was, and they wouldn't be hiding anything from me or talking behind my back.

"But then I found out about how my parents died. They were killed. My new family knew, and yet I wasn't told. I left to my own camper home out of frustration."

Both Takumi and Rimi looked very invested in his story. In a way, it reminded Takuru of how the newspaper club would go. Him speaking about whatever they should cover as a topic, and the rest of the club listening intently.

Well, the club was always a little more distracted.

Takumi spoke up. "We know that Serika Onoe was the one who began the chain of events for the crimes. That's what our contacts were informed of, and so we really just want to know: what were her motives? Surely you would know the most, if you were the one to reset her memories and real boot her."

"I... I know that Serika's top priority was always me. That's how she was made when I was a child. I knew that I would always come first when it came to her, because that's how her being a childhood friend worked for me. I remember her saying that she was jealous of everyone else getting in the way of me spending time with her, and so...she played this entire charade of crimes to get my way with her."

Rimi shook her head, sighing. "In the end, it's always just a game." Takumi grimaced at this statement.

"Yeah. In the end, it was all a goddamned game," he said out loud. "That's how it always goes. People assume the world is at stakes, but in the end, we're all just pawns. We're all fighting to move to the next world, before the current one takes us out."

It was right. He was right. Lightning Fast Neidhardt was somehow always right, and Takuru had no idea why.

Rimi stepped in. "Takuru. Do you know how you're here?"

"Not particularly..." All Takuru knew was that he was talking to Takumi Nishijo, but he didn't know why he was here and out of his cell. In fact, he had no idea who Rimi was either. Why was she listening to all of this? "I thought I was supposed to be in my cell."

"Well, the truth is, you're still in your room, but at the same time you aren’t."

"So...is this all a dream?"

Rimi smiled. "Not a dream. You know better."

Takumi groaned. "Just spell it out for him! Look, you're in a damned delusion synchro. The three of us. Nobody else. It's impossible to hack into this particular wavelength, according to Rimi anyway. And she's the strongest gigalomaniac in existence, so she knows a thing or two about shielding others from hearing her own thoughts."

_…what?_

There was too much information overloading into Takuru’s brain. He wasn’t used to it at all. He was in another delusion? How were they able to do that, if even to get to Takuru? That was impossible, and let alone that, what did they mean by being impossible to hack into this wavelength? How did that work?

And what made Rimi the strongest gigalomaniac at all?

"Taku, that's so much credit! Besides--"

"I'm no longer one, remember?" Takumi pointed his finger at Rimi in a comedic fashion and stood up, his jacket slightly moving with the wind in the room. "Objection! You tell a lie!"

_Wait, what the hell did—_

Rimi shook her head. "Anyway, I'm Rimi! Bishi! I'm Takumi's girlfriend, and I was with Takumi during the New Generation Madness!"

“We wanted to ask you, the main culprit who was framed for the entire conflict, about your own experience.” Takumi folded his hands. “It’s clear to us that it was all just one silly game between you and your childhood friend, but with dastardly severe consequences. But do you feel that despite it all, would you rather it never happened?”

“…I don’t regret it.”

“Why so?”

“Because I never would have grown otherwise. I would’ve remained the arrogant child who wanted to live his life out with the love of his life, not realising that it was a formula born for doom.”

Takumi tilted his head. “…You’re in love with Serika?”

“Yes.”

“Despite all that she’s done to make your life miserable for her pleasure?”

“I realised that in the end, it was my fault for wanting to depend on others and run away. I couldn’t pull my own worth, and by depending on her, I left myself to not be able to grow with her. A man can’t spend his life clinging to the girl he loves, after all.”

“…someone also said to keep your friends close, and keep your enemies closer,” Rimi murmured. Takuru looked up, confused. _What was she referring to now?_

Takumi looked uncomfortable. “Hey…”

“It’s true though, isn’t it?” Rimi went over to sit in Takumi’s lap sideways, despite the protests that seemed to come from underneath. “If you only rely on others, then perhaps there is no point. But what point is that love then, if you can’t express it? Bottling it all inside?

“To let go of love like that, is even worth it then if you can’t contribute to their happiness in any way?”

Takuru shook his head. “It’s pointless to chase after something that was never meant to be.”

“You know,” Takumi started, “I used to think that reality was all bleak. There were no lies there, and the earthquake was genuinely horrible. There was nothing more that I hated. But…even then, I still fought for my life.”

“Because you knew it mattered to you?”

“What are you, stupid? That was the last thing that mattered to me at that point,” Takumi snarled. “I just wanted the one who protected me all this time to not die! The only person I could rely on when everything was stolen from me, and now you’re saying that’s wrong? That you should let them go rot and die on their own?”

“That’s not—”

“Come on! That’s the most wrong-sider logic I’ve ever heard in a while!”

Had it been back then, Takuru would’ve probably got up and yelled at Takumi for accusing him of something like that. But this time, Takuru didn’t have anything to say. He simply just fell silent.

_Was he right? Was I right, or was Takumi?_

Takumi ignored Takuru, who was now staring at the ground. “The night everything broke down, there…there she was. It was terrifying. I didn’t want to live anymore, and I just wanted all the suffering to go away. But instead, she forgave me, and she let me live. She didn’t allow me to die because she was just too selfish. Is _that_ just her mistake?! Hmm?! She should’ve let me die instead, and everything would have been better because she stopped clinging?!”

“Taku!” Rimi scolded.

“Sorry,” he responded, “but I cannot accept that logic! That’s just insane and stupid!”

Rimi got up and sat next to Takuru, who was still thinking about the words Takumi said. There had to be a way to logic this out, to find a right and wrong, right?

“Sometimes we don’t have the right answer for everything. But we still struggle through life while hoping that we did it right, isn’t that so? Let’s put that question aside for now,” Rimi advised. “Do you…do you feel trapped inside that prison space”

“Yeah. It’s like a container.” Takuru had always asked about why he couldn’t be put in a better space, but as Kunosato described to him, it was simply impossible to get anything else through. It was almost like this was the only option for Takuru, or rather they were torturing him on purpose to get him to break.

_Probably all part of Wakui’s plan to use me as an asset._

“Wait, why am I telling you with this information?”

Takumi grimaced. “We have…certain responsibilities that make this valuable to us. Anyway, what’s the point of it all? Do you not go insane?”

“Apparently not,” Takuru said. “The lead researcher in CCS keeps coming in every once in a while, to check up on us, so she keeps things interesting at times.”

Rimi’s eyes shone. “Oh, Miss Kunosato! Wasn’t she someone you talked with before?” She turned towards Takumi, who had a troubled expression.

“No, I never talked to her. I think Chris mentioned her before and described her as ruthless.”

“That sounds right,” Takuru chuckled.

“Anyway, point is, we have connections, so don’t worry about this information getting out,” Takumi said hastily. “Stop making this hard.”

“Takuru, I have a question,” Rimi said.

“Yes?”

“Would it be alright if…well, this might come as a strange request to you. But would it be alright if we visited you every now and then like this?”

“I…I don’t understand.”

“We’re saying that we like you, and we want to keep talking to you like this!” Takumi stood up and started shaking Takuru’s shoulders. “Why are you so thick, dear lord?!”  
“Ahh, stop that!”

“Taku!”

Takumi sat down, frustrated. “Fine. But do you accept our offer?”

“I…” Takuru hesitated. “I need a moment to think about this, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure.” Takumi turned to his computer and turned on the monitor. Rimi looked towards the monitor as well, interested in what Takumi was doing.

Takuru was at a crossroads now. What was the right decision? Did it matter? It wasn’t like he could escape their advances if they wanted. If Rimi really was as strong as she’d made herself out to be, then theoretically, he was safe, right?

But would it defeat the purpose of his clause with Wakui?

He swore that he would be able to keep his desires at bay, and that he would relinquish all that power. He wouldn’t rely on others to make his own journeys. Was this cheating?

But was it cheating if Takuru wasn’t the one in control, and would it be foolish and ignorant thusly?

Takuru’s promise revolved around the fact that he would be able to conduct his own fate, not depending on the external tools. His own personality, and whatever he could accomplish.

But this wasn’t Takuru going back for power. This was Takuru attempting to understand himself. Instead of running away from the truth and trying to create his own fantasy, this was him confronting the world in a way that would be otherwise inaccessible to his space.

He wouldn’t allow himself to be at the mercy of Wakui.

And most importantly…

_I can still find the irrationality to this world and make use of it._

_I can still protect Serika despite whatever horrible ideas he has in mind._

“I’ve made my mind up.”

“Oh?” Takumi said, turning around. “Ah, goddamnit! Hana, you were supposed to go left!”

Rimi looked at Takuru, and once again with that unnerving smile from before. “What will it be, Takuru?”

“I…I don’t want to give up just yet. I don’t want to run away from the truth when it’s given to me, and I want to still fight for my own destiny.”

“Hehe. Truth,” Takumi snickered to himself. “What a stupid word.”

“In other words, I accept.”

Rimi’s smile warmed. “That’s the right choice.”


End file.
